1. Technical Field
This invention is directed to interactive display arrangements and more particularly to an apparatus and a method for enabling a user to easily access both local and network-based features through an interactive display arrangement.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Telephone terminals that contain user interactive displays and enable a user to access local and network-based features and also to execute local and network-based commands at the telephone terminal are now becoming popular. In these terminals, the number of features or commands available on a display for selection by the user is limited, at any given time, by the finite size of the display.
Most high function telephone terminals provide buttons and indicators for access to network-based features available from a telecommunication switch. Many of these telephone terminals also provide a display which further describes the feature or other available network-based information. Some telephone terminals also provide local features wherein access to a personal directory on a display or a repertory dialer may be provided, for example. When telephone terminals provide access to both local and network-based features, however, the operation of selecting from one or the other set of displayable features may be confusing to a user. This confusion occurs since often a user is not able to readily determine the particular state (local or network-based) that the telephone terminal is in and then reconfigure the terminal to the other state for accessing its features or to execute a command in this other state.
To minimize the confusing aspects of the display operation, some telephone terminals available in the art are constructed with the display separated into two separate areas. For these terminals, the buttons and a first part of the display are assigned to accessible network-based or switched features while other buttons and a second pan of the display are assigned to accessible local features. Other telephone terminals are constructed with completely separate displays and buttons for accessing the local and network-based features or require the user to consciously switch the display between the local state and the network-based state before being able to access a feature in the switched to state. It is desirable, therefore, that a telephone terminal providing access to both local and network-based features allows a user to be able to easily gain access to and use either of these features without undue confusion.